[State]

I could really use some wise counsel. What about very occasionally using others' floating docks that aren't attached to a landowner's property?

There are a couple of people on my smaller, largely unregulated lake--at least as far as docks and boat moorings go--who treat their unattached floating docks in public waterways as if they haven't seceded any control of them whatsoever.

Yet, it seems when one puts his private property in a public setting--where anyone has a legal right to be--that he should lose some degree of control over his private property. That's not to say others can monopolize, control, or damage it.

There was a legal case just a few years ago in another state that's likely analogous. Someone put a chair on the side of a road where he liked to sit and observe traffic and such, which is public right of way, and expected that no one else could use it. When others did he attempted to have them arrested. But the case--how it became one is beyond me--ended with the court saying it's reasonable to let others have access to his chair when he's not using it. He loses some degree of control of his property based on where he placed it.

I think the same thing should apply to floating docks.

When two of my young sons asked for permission to use a neighbor's floating dock and I said yes for the first time the owner accosted me, accusing me of using her beach, where we had never set foot. She threatened to call the police the next time it occurred.

And the young boys--11 and nine--were on it for less than five minutes when no one else was using it.

It's certainly a gray area, when private property is placed in public waterways. Next year when I purchase our own floating dock, perhaps the shoes will be on the other foot. But I do think I'd be a little more lenient about the prospect of others jumping off it. Can't put fences on the water, even if they do help make for better neighbors.